borders

Illustrating News

Putting pertinent photos with a story adds impact and helps understanding.

So here’s a story about the US-Mexico border fence. And the story begins in Nogales, split between Arizona and Sonora.

Well, folks, I’ve been in Nogales lots of times in the course of fifty years or so. (Granted, some of those years I was too young to notice much.) The photo accompanying this paragraph is not Nogales!

Border fence at Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora? No!

I know, I know — the story makes no claim that it’s Nogales. But still.

So I let’s take this in a totally different direction.

Is the person in the photo a drug smuggler coming north or a gun runner going south?

Or is it an Islamic terrorist sneaking into the States or an illegal immigrant fleeing back to Mexico after murdering someone in the US?

Source: High Country News

Tightening the Border

A week from this morning is scheduled to be my first morning in Mexico in almost a year.

So this headline just caught my attention: Dozen die in Mexico clash ahead of Obama trip

I clicked it to see where the latest mayhem happened and where President Barack Obama is planning to go.

In my quick scan (which answered both of my original questions), I saw this:

The Obama administration is tightening the U.S.-Mexico border

Good deal. Maybe that will slow down the illegal flow (of drugs and “undocumented workers”) northward.

But the sentence continues:

to prevent trafficking of U.S. guns to Mexican cartels

Oh.

Borderline Perspectives

So here’s the story: Drug violence spins Mexico toward ‘civil war’.

And here’s the piece that provokes this post:

…the United States helps fuel the violence, not only by providing a ready market for illegal drugs, but also by supplying the vast majority of weapons used by drug gangs.

Victimhood in international relations — great.

How about an alternate rendition?

…the United States Mexico helps fuel the violence, not only by providing a ready market for illegal drugs weapons used by drug gangs, but also by supplying the vast majority of weapons used by drug gangs illegal drugs.

Interesting, no?

So…do I (and/or you) do this sort of thing in my our own communicating?

Quiz With a Point

OK, here are portions of two paragraphs from the story:

…the ___ ambassador to ___, says his country wants the ___ government to fully enforce ___ laws, crack down on….

“If Mexico and the United States are going to be successful, we are going to have to tango together,” ___ said.

What’s the subject: drugs, guns, immigration?

Read it all

FYI: Border Crossing

U.S. tracking citizens’ border crossings

The U.S. government has been using its border checkpoints to collect information on citizens that will be stored for 15 years, raising concern among privacy advocates, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

[…]information may be shared with federal, state and local governments to test “new technology and systems designed to enhance border security or identify other violations of law,” the Post reported.

[…]

Information on international air passengers has long been collected this way but Customs and Border Protection only this year began to log the arrivals of all U.S. citizens across land borders, the Post said.

Privacy advocates raised concerns about the expanded collection of personal data and said safeguards are needed to ensure the system is not abused.

[…]

DHS spokesman Russ Knocke told the paper that the retention period was justified.

“History has shown, whether you are talking about criminal or terrorist activity, that plotting, planning or even relationships among conspirators can go on for years,” he said. “Basic travel records can, quite literally, help frontline officers to connect the dots.”

Another Reason for a Fence

As someone who grew up in Mexico (I lived there close to 22 years), I don’t understand the logic behind unmarked and/or unfenced boundaries.

Makes no good sense to me at all.

Border patrol agent held at gunpoint

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.

Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.

It was unclear what the soldiers were doing in the United States, but U.S. law enforcement authorities have long said that current and former Mexican military personnel have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.

In a Roth Administration, both US borders would be well-fenced and well-monitored and well-enforced.

In the period up to the completion of a secure physical structure, two spy satellites would be “parked” over each border and fully-authorized-to-detain-or-repel agents would be exclusively assigned to the most troublesome areas. Wherever there is an incursion, drone aircraft would supplement satellite coverage.

It took me less than two minutes to figure that out. 😯

Maybe I have more common sense than’s required to be one of them there run-of-the-mill political types. 🙄 😆

All that aside, how about some good news?

Good news keeps pouring out of the epicenter. Oil prices are falling (20% of record highs earlier this summer). Domestic gas prices are falling. Violence in Iraq continues dropping steadily. Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi Army, is telling his forces to lay down their arms. And the U.S. just convicted one of Osama bin Laden’s closest aides in the first military trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Are more tough times ahead? Undoubtedly. But let’s take a moment to say a prayer of thanksgiving.

Fencing Fantasies

Waxing Reaganesque — “Mr. Bush, take down this fence!”

Happy talk aside, relations between the two neighbors have worsened since Bush last year signed a law calling for construction of fencing along the long border the two countries share. Calderón has ridiculed the fence, likening it to the Berlin Wall.

Since I’ve already posted on this subject here and here, I’ll not say anything further.

However, there’s also this:

Church groups led marches along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to protest the use of fences to stop migrants.

Nearly 100 members of churches in Arizona and Mexico marched Sunday on either side of a wall near the town of Naco, which straddles the border.

On the Mexico side, Father Guillermo Coronado of La Iglesia San Jose in Naco, Sonora, said more people need to organize similar demonstrations.

“This is a sign of what needs to be done in all the border states rather than rejecting and ignoring other human beings,” he said. “The greatest gift we have is that we are human beings with a mission to love and be happy. God has no borders.”

Señor Coronado, a question, please.

Does your church have any borders?

Also, does your church take any action to stop activity it deems immoral?

And finally, do you see any valid parallels between your answers to the previous questions and what you’re protesting against?

Above all, love God!